The project’s main aim is to identify and study in-depth a specific number of fatwas issued in different historical times concerning a specific topic—the status of non-Muslims (ahl al-dhimma) in the Ottoman Arab world. This main aim will be achieved through the following set of interrelated specific objectives: enhance the conception and methodology of my PhD dissertation through testing and developing its initial framework; identify and collect specific dissertation-relevant fatwa source material; construct an initial set of interrelated case studies for the PhD thesis.

Fatwas reflect the social conditions and cultural milieu in a given time and place and in the same time they have to be consistent with a definite religious school of Islamic law. A research of muftiship and their fatwas can allow us to analyze the social and doctrinal background of the mufti and his mode of reasoning on the one hand, and the underlying cultural characteristics of fatwa giving in Muslim societies in general on the other.

My main hypothesis is that the work of the muftis in a given context could appear to have been at least as significant as the work of the Islamic judge. Sometimes and in certain places iftā’ (the process of issuing a fatwa) is an integral part of the judicial process and as such it is instrumental in the interpretation and application of legal doctrine. On the other side, their work was very useful because it allowed access to a larger pool of juristic resources and created a whole legal pattern based on the precedent and on the individual interpretation. Another crucial point of my research stipulates an in-depth study of the ‘openness’ of the iftā’ institution and the extent to which muftis were autonomous from the domain of state and political power. I will also try to show how with time, the accumulation of fatwas issued in different social and historical settings served as a stimulus from below fostering the evolution of Islamic law, because they represented a response to the specific needs of particular Muslim communities.